Cow Lick'd Canadian Bacon

Note: You need to prepare and boil the brine ahead of time to allow the brine to cool in the refrigerator to approximately 38°F before adding the pork loin to the brine. DO NOT put uncooked meat in a warm brine or you will end up with spoiled meat.

Ingredients

- 1 Whole Pork loin (This is not a pork tenderloin)
- 1 Gallon water

  I recommend using filtered or distilled water.  This eliminates Chlorine,
  Flouride, lead and who knows what else that is in your city water.

- 1 1/4 cups Morton's TenderQuick
 (This is a curing mixture available at Amazon.com)
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons Dizzy Pig Cow Lick Steak Rub

  (Available at Ruff's Barbeque Shoppe - 1941 Youngfield St., Golden, CO
   80401 or order from www.dizzypigbbq.com)

- 1 tablespoon juniper berries, slightly crushed

  (Available at Amazon.com OR http://www.myspicer.com/

- 1/2 tablespoon whole black peppercorns, slightly crushed

   Put the Juniper berries, and whole black peppercorns
   in a mortor and pestle and crush lightly to open up the spices.

 The above picture shows the whole pork loin cut in halves.

Bring all ingredients together with the 1 gallon of water and boil hard for about 10 minutes to ensure everything is dissolved and flavors captured from the garlic, bay leaves, berries, peppercorns, etc.  Putting a cover on the pot will bring it to a boil faster.

Remove pot from heat, and let cool to 100°F or room temp.  Leaving pot covered will result in less evaporation of the brine, but will take longer to cool.  Strain curing brine if you prefer (I do not)  and put the brine in your brining container.

Use a non-metallic container for the brine.  I use a Rubbermaid 40 cups / 9.4 Liter food grade plastic container.  This is the perfect size.  Large enough to comfortably hold a whole pork loin cut in halves, and small enough for the brine to completely cover the loin.

 
Put in the refrigerator over night or long enough to cool to approximately 38°F, which is your ideal temp.

One side of the whole pork loin will have a fat cap.  For best results, this fat cap and the silver skin below it must be trimmed off.  Otherwise, the fat cap and silver skin will block the absorbtion of the brine and that side of the loin may not cure properly.

If using a large loin, you can use a cooks' syringe to inject strained curing brine into the middle of the meat to ensure complete curing.

 I strongly suggest injecting the pork loin, but I do not strain the brine first.  When removing brine from the refrigerator, be careful not to agitate the brine and stir up the sediment.  Then simply draw the cooled brine from the middle of the container, not the bottom.

Cut the whole pork loin in half and add the loin halves to the cooled brine, and weigh down with a heavy plate to ensure they remain completely submerged in the brine.  Do not allow any of the surface of the loin to be exposed to the air.

Suggested cure time is 5-7 days (I go the entire 7 days). Turn the loins within the brine every day during the curing process to allow brine to reach all surface areas of the meat.

After the 5-7 days of curing, remove the pork loins from the curing brine.  Discard the curing brine.  Do not reuse the brine or try to use it for basting the loin, or anything else.

Rinse the loins under running cold water to remove all spices, etc.

At this point they can be soaked in clean, cold water to remove some of the saltiness of the brine.  Depending on your taste/tolerance of the salt content in cured meat, you may want to skip this step entirely or soak for 30 minutes or up to 2 hours.  If soaking for more than 30 miniutes, change the water half way through.

(If you do not remove some salt, the bacon will be quite salty.  Probably too salty for most folks.  Due to blood pressure issues in my family, I soak for 2 Hours, changing the water once at 1 hour in.  As a starting point, I would suggest soaking for 1 hour, changing the water at 1/2 hour in.  Then adjust according to taste for the next batch)

Next, pat the loins dry with paper towel or dry cloth. Apply a thin coating of the Dizzy Pig Cow Lick Steak Rub as shown below.

Prepare an indirect fire in your cooker, aiming for a pit temperature of 225°F. I use a Big Green Egg but you can also do this on a Weber.  Use the smokewood of your choice. As you can see in the picture above, I've chosen to go with a good-sized chunk of cherry, some Jack Daniel oak barrel chunks and a hint o' sweet pecan.

Note the temperature probe in the picture below.  Be sure to use a thermometer like the one pictured above to get a ball park internal temperature without opening the cooker and letting all the heat out.  When it gets close to the desired internal temperature, then use a temperature probe thermometer to spot check both ends and the middle of both loins to determine doneness.  Do not guess at how done the meat is. 

When the internal temperature reaches 150°F, I wrap the loins in aluminum foil.  Stick the thermometer probe back in the loin through the aluminum foil.  Continue to cook to 160°F to 165°F.  This speeds up getting through the plateau and keeps the meat moist.  When you pull the loins off the smoker, leave them in the foil and let them rest 1 to 1 1/2 hours before slicing.

The target internal temperature of the cook will be determined largely by your intention for the finished pork loins. If you are looking for a breakfast bacon to be fried before eating, then an internal of 140-145°F will be ideal. For a finished fully-cooked product, keep cooking to internal of 155-160°F.
(For safety reasons, I cook to an internal temp of 160°F to 165°F.)

The loins came off the cooker at 145°F internal, as it's my intention to use them as a breakfast bacon. Let the loin(s) rest for at least an hour, up to an hour and a half, otherwise the juices will end up on the cutting board instead of staying in the meat.  The loins are sliced in 1/4" slices, here using my new Wustof 'Super Slicer', which does a great job with consistent results.

The bacon can be fried up immediately or kept in the fridge with much the same shelf-life as other commercial cured bacons. It also freezes well, especially when pre-sliced with pieces of waxed paper placed between the slices.
(I freeze individual slices laid out on a cookie sheet that is very lightly sprayed with PAM.  Then put the frozen slices in a Zip-Lock bag.  This eliminates the need for waxed paper between slices)

For breakfast bacon, lightly fry the cured pork loins using a bit of oil over medium heat until outside caramelizes a bit and loins are heated through.  Do not overcook or you will loose the tenderness and moisture.

Give it a try, and Enjoy!

Qfan